Put a more meaningful message when importing numpy from its source tree.

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/numpy/__init__.py b/numpy/__init__.py
index a62e3c943..869a592d8 100644
--- a/numpy/__init__.py
+++ b/numpy/__init__.py
@@ -24,7 +24,13 @@ if __NUMPY_SETUP__:
     print >> _sys.stderr, 'Running from numpy source directory.'
     del _sys
 else:
-    from numpy.__config__ import show as show_config
+    try:
+        from numpy.__config__ import show as show_config
+    except ImportError, e:
+        msg = """Error importing numpy: you should not try to import numpy from
+        its source directory; please exit the numpy source tree, and relaunch
+        your python intepreter from there."""
+        raise ImportError(msg)
     from version import version as __version__
 
     from _import_tools import PackageLoader